


Thanatos

by Aloysia_Virgata



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen, Post-Episode: s02e13 Irresistible (X-Files)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-14 14:36:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16914723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aloysia_Virgata/pseuds/Aloysia_Virgata
Summary: Transferred over from an old account, written about two years ago.





	Thanatos

The moon is a sickle, a hangnail, a rib. Scully sits beneath it in the cold dark, wrapped in the hotel bedspread. A cigarette is pressed between her dry lips and she sucks hard at it, as though smoking requires the same intensity she applies to everything else.

There are still defensive wounds on her hands.

A cricket moves along the pavement, ovipositor spiked out the back, and Scully tracks it through a slice of light from the floodlamps. Little scraps of life stir in the grass, moths and beetles weaving through the moldering leaves. An owl calls once, twice, and snatches something squeaking out of the field. Raccoons clatter in the garbage on the side of the building. And Donnie Pfaster would marvel at none of it, she thinks, shuddering. It’s vexing that he haunts her still, a week later.

Footsteps behind her and she stiffens, reaches for the gun she doesn’t have on her. A long shadow falls over the cricket.

“Hey,” Mulder says. “There you are."

She turns, squinting into the harsh light. “Yep.” Scully exhales a long plume of smoke with her fear.

Mulder sits next to her on the rough concrete. “Faxed our report from the hotel lobby. I put in your addendum on the flayed thigh.”

“Thanks.”

Mulder holds out his hand towards her cigarette. "May I?”

She passes it over, knowing it’s a psychologist’s move to build trust, to put her at ease. She’s grateful anyway.

He takes a long drag and blows a smoke ring. “This was always my favorite vice,” he remarks in a confessional tone. "They say it’s more addictive than heroin.”

“King James called it a ‘noxious, stinking weed,’ as I recall.”

“I feel like I’m in high school,” Mulder says, bumping her shoulder with his. “Hanging out with a bad girl.”

She takes the cigarette back from him. “Don’t tell Skinner what a terrible influence I am on you.”

“Pinkie swear. He might get jealous.”

Scully smiles, stubs the cigarette out in the dirt. “You know, the pre-Raphaelites had a penchant for mummy brown paint.”

He cocks his head. “Made of ground up mummies and some binders, right?”

“Right.” She considers him for a moment, his breath steaming in the chilly air. “Here, Mulder,” she says, holding out part of the comforter. “You’re freezing.”

“Nah, I’m okay.”

“Don’t be stupid.” She scoots closer to him and drapes the blanket around his shoulders.

He draws it around them, blocking the cold air, and his body heat seeps around her. “Better,” he admits. “So why are you thinking about obscure paint pigments, Doc?”

Scully sighs. “Just that…ummm. People have a strange fascination with death, don’t they?”

Mulder chews his lip. “I think it’s the one thing that equalizes everyone. Intellectually, I mean. It’s the one thing no one can truly know about, no matter how smart they are.”

“Even me.”

He smiles. “Even you.”

“Is that what he was doing, Mulder? Trying to possess some forbidden knowledge?”

“Pfaster? No, he was just a sick, powerless fuck who wanted to control women.”

She laughs a little. “Is ‘sick, powerless fuck’ in the DSM IV?”

“Absolutely.”

She lights another cigarette, which they share in silence for a time.

“I thought I was going to die,” she says at last, staring into the night ahead of them. “And the idea of myself on a slab under someone’s scalpel, so exposed and so…victimized, made me furious. I couldn’t accept it.”

Scully looks at him then and she sees he’d thought it too, that she would die in that lonely house.

“You didn’t,” he says gently. “You’re a fighter.”

She gazes up at the sky. “Lots of people fight,” she murmurs. “Every day, I autopsy people who fought and lost.”

Mulder puts an arm around her shoulders. “I’ll bet on you every time, Scully,” he says.

She squeezes his fingers, and doesn’t let go.


End file.
